The Best Superhero Comic of the Year Is About a Crime-Solving Dog Who Loves Pizza

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The Best Superhero Comic of the Year Is About a Crime-Solving Dog Who Loves Pizza

All images by David Aja/Marvel Comics

Yesterday, Hawkeye No. 11 hit the print (and digital) shelves, the latest issue of a superhero comic devoted to the bow-wielding Avenger that nobody really cared about–at least until writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja got their hands on him last year. What initially seemed like a short-term passion project for Fraction (Casanova, Invincible Iron Man) and his former Immortal Iron Fist collaborator Aja has become a smart, stylish high-water mark for mainstream comics, a critical darling whose collected trade paperback debut somehow managed to knock the first Walking Dead Compendiumout of the No. 1 slot on the New York Times bestseller list for graphic novels.

Oh, and its latest issue contains almost no words and is told entirely from the perspective of a dog who loves pizza and solves crime.

When we first met Lucky, aka Pizza Dog, in the first issue of the comic, he was lying critically wounded on a vet's table after a car-dog collision while Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye) stood over him and said “Fix. This. Dog.” After pulling through the ordeal, the canine–who first took a liking to the street-level Avenger after being fed a slice of delicious pizza–become a fan-favorite character, though for obvious reasons, he's always been more of a sidekick than a hero.

But thanks to the latest and possibly best issue of Hawkeye yet from Fraction and Aja, Pizza Dog not only gets a chance to shine but to solve a murder. But the story, titled "Pizza Is My Business," doesn't just follow the dog on his adventures; it actually simulates his experience of the world through the visual narrative, which contains almost no words and portrays the dog's thoughts and interactions through an interconnected web of pictograms. And since much of the way dogs interact with the world has to do with their sense of smell, most of that visual “dialogue” has to do with olfactory responses.

“I had to go through and figure out what each character smelled like,” Fraction told Wired. Clint, for example, smells like coffee, while Kate Bishop–a fellow bow-wielding hero–smells like flowers, cocktails, and pizza. Walking past the other doors in their apartment building reveals a broader cast of characters who identities must be deduced from simplistic visual icons: the bearded man who reads books and burns incense, the mother of two small children in diapers–and the man whose body is lying on the roof next to a barbeque grill. Who killed him? It's up to both Pizza Dog–and the reader–to decipher the clues.

There's a dense wealth of visual information ready to be unpacked in the issue, an intricately designed marvel (no pun intended) constructed with an attention to detail and semiotics that bears more resemblance to Chris Ware than Jack Kirby. Since the issue involves a reunion between Pizza Dog and his previous Polish-speaking owners, Fraction actually consulted with a Polish speaker to learn what commands they might use while speaking to a pet. “Would it be "boy," like my dog responds to?" Fraction told Wired. "Or 'drive,' or 'park'? It became this three-day long conversation about tenses. All this work that literally went into four characters."

The conceit is a high-concept, high-wire act for a comic to carry off, but Fraction and Aja stick the landing with a poise and grace that deserves full marks even from the metaphorical East German judges–not to mention the Eisner Award committee. It manages to be both a functional murder mystery loaded with noir sensibilities–from the bloody paw prints that blot across the cover to a rooftop gun scuffle with neighborhood thugs–and a book that is as entertaining as it is experimental and worth reading a time or ten.

Part of what makes Hawkeye so special, and so able to operate in a distinct way from other Marvel Comics titles, both visually and narratively, is that it operates in the spaces in between the many interconnected titles of the Marvel Universe. Or as the introduction to most issues of Hawkeye explains, “This is what he does when he's not being an Avenger. That's all you need to know.”

That's good news if you aren't a regular superhero comic book reader. Or hell, even if you are. Granted, it's only June, but I'm ready to call it right now: This is the best comic of 2013. If you buy one comic book about a one-eyed canine superhero sidekick this year – or really, any superhero comic at all – make it this one.